The new bill is sponsored by the Israeli justice minister, Ayelet Shaked.

Iraeli ministers have voted in favour of a bill that will crack down on human rights groups receiving funds from abroad, a move EU officials have said is reminiscent of totalitarian regimes.

Opponents say the bill unfairly targets leftwing organizations critical of government policy, leaving rightwing pro-settlement groups immune from the same scrutiny, as those tend to rely on private donors – who are exempt from the measures. The so-called transparency bill, sponsored by the justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, according to The Guardian/Al Ray, requires organizations to provide details of the countries funding their activities in any communication with elected officials, imposing a 29,000 shekel (£5,000) fine on any who fail to do so. Employees would also be required to wear special tags when working in Israel’s parliament.

The measures passed the first major legislative hurdle Sunday, when government ministers agreed to it in principal, making it almost certain to pass into law. The legislation is expected to receive support, from all the coalition factions within the Israeli government, when it is put to a final vote. It was part of a coalition agreement made by Shaked’s Hayabit Hayehudi party and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Opposition leaders have put pressure on the Israeli prime minister and coalition members to try to prevent the vote.

The EU ambassador to Israel recently met Shaked, to warn that the bill would undermine Israeli’s image as “a democratic and pluralistic country”, Israeli media reported. EU officials were quoted as saying that “Israel should be very careful about reigning in its prosperous democratic society with laws that are reminiscent of totalitarian regimes”.

Ayman Odeh, the leader of the united front of Israel’s Arab parties in the Knesset, accused the government of trying to silence criticism. “The government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is chipping away at what is left of the democratic space in Israel,” he said. “Human rights organizations fill an essential role in any society which aspires to be democratic, which is why they are constantly targeted as enemies of Israeli sovereignty.”

Zehava Galon, head of Meretz opposition party, described the bill as incredibly dangerous. “Beyond the fact that this is a bill that ostensibly seeks to increase transparency, it seeks to label human beings,” she said.

The organization Breaking the Silence, comprised of former soldiers who oppose Israel’s actions in the occupied territories, said the timing of the bill was intended to distract attention from the charging of suspects arrested in connection with the arson attack on a Palestinian family in the West Bank village of Douma.

“The reason the bill has come to discussion today is simple: it’s a smokescreen to keep the silence going,” said former soldier Yehuda Shaul. “Last week we saw images from the wedding [in which settlers stabbed a picture of a Palestinian baby killed in the attack]. We know that this week will be surrounded with talk about Douma and the lack of law enforcement in the occupied territories.

Breaking the Silence already reports on its funding every quarter - it receives 55% of its funding from European governments with a budget of 4.5m shekels this year. Shaul said: “Transparency laws are already advanced here: we need to report in our annual report every single donor over 20,000 shekels, including all private donors.”

In comparison, the pro-settlement group El Ad receives estimated funding of 60m shekels a year. Many right-wing non-profit groups received exemptions from the Israeli NGO authority, meaning they did not have to reveal who their private donors were. “This law is another attempt to politically persecute the left,” Shaul said.

Head of the Prisoners and Ex-Prisoner Affairs, Issa Qaraqe’, on Tuesday, said that Ma’moun Al-Khatib (16), from Al-Doha town in Bethlehem, whose body has been returned on Sunday after three weeks of detention, was beaten to death after being shot.

He said that there are marks of torture and savage beating on his body, which is the case of other countless Palestinian victims of the Israeli forces.

Speaking at the funeral of 16-year-old Ma’moun Al-Khatib, Qaraqe’ said that even the most fascist countries would not torture their victims even after killing them, torment their families and place restrictions on their burial or funerals, except for Israel.

He said, additionally, that the Israeli retention of Palestinians’ bodies after killing them was a shameful moral stigma that challenges all human and religious values.

“Israel has willfully killed civilians and still refuses to return their bodies to their families. The bodies of these victims are violated as worthless carcasses, and when returned, the killer places his own conditions in unprecedent insolence and a doubled crime.”

The shooting took place on December 1st, when Israeli forces claimed that the boy tried to stab a soldier on Etzion checkpoint. to the south of Bethlehem.

Israel has returned several bodies of slain Palestinians whom they willfully killed over the past few months, and still retains some 50 bodies, refusing to give them back.

The bodies are handed back to their families under strict conditions that include time, place, and number of people in the funeral.

This move is to prevent taking the victims to anatomy, according to the PNN, since Israel has been accused of harvesting organs and operating other violations on their dead bodies kept in refrigerators.

The real terrorism is the one perpetrated by the Israeli occupation army and propped up by Israeli political institutions, Arab MK Hanin Zoabi said Monday.

Talking in a speech at a no-confidence motion in parliament against the Israeli government on Monday, MK Zoabi wondered: “Has any [Israeli] dared to accuse the criminals who burned [18-month-old] Ali to death and killed [his parents] Saad and Riham? Who has ever described them as psychopaths or terrorists?”

“Who has been killing and legitimizing the murder of Palestinian children? Aren’t they the ones who gave instructions for the execution of some 500 children in Gaza and the murder of 1,700 Palestinians in the latest Israeli offensive on Gaza?” Zoabi added.

“Who is the real terrorist? Who is more bloodthirsty? Who does rejoice at butchery?,” she said.

“Not only do Israelis kill and feign tears, shed blood and dance; they also kill and look for pretexts,” Zoabi further stated.

“The real terrorist is the Israeli army and the real terrorism is the one perpetrated by the Israeli occupation,” the MK concluded.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has condemned the recent meetings which took place between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Israeli occupation as "a treacherous stab in the side of the Palestinian people."

PA negotiation chief Saeb Erekat stated recently that he had met last July and August in Amman and Cairo with the then Israeli deputy premier, Silvan Shalom, and explored with him avenues of restarting the peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis.

In a press release on Monday, the PFLP called on the PA to stop what it described as its frivolous and harmful meetings with the Israeli occupation state, expressing its belief that such meetings are "insulting to the Palestinian people's struggle and sacrifices."

The PFLP added that the PA's persistence in its futile negotiation option constitutes a disregard for the national consensus and decisions.

In a related context, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that Erekat's recent meetings with Shalom confirmed that the PA had always lacked credibility.

Abu Zuhri accused, in press remarks on Monday, the PA leadership of hiding from its people its real positions and the truth of its contacts with the Israeli occupation.

In a blatant violation of the Muslims' freedom of worship, the Israeli prosecution office has asked a court in Occupied Jerusalem to criminalize the use of the Islamic Thakbir expression, "Allahu Akbar (God is the greatest)," inside the Aqsa Mosque.

This came up after the Israeli police arrested a Palestinian young man from the 1948 occupied lands on a charge of shouting Allahu Akbar as a horde of Jewish settlers were touring the Mosque's courtyards.

The police claimed that chanting such a religious slogan would stir up riots at the Mosque.

Palestinian lawyer Ramzi Katilat described the Israeli step as a dangerous precedent, pointing out that the previous arrest incidents that had happened at the Mosque because of shouting Thakbir were not dealt with as a crime and only led the police to question the detainee and then release him or ban his entry to the Islamic holy shrine.

Katilat affirmed that he and other lawyers would file a petition with the same court to explain that the Thakbir chant inside the Mosque is part of the freedoms of worship and expression and how the prosecutor's request would violate these rights.

Second deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Hasan Khreisheh has warned that the Palestinian Authority's intention to hold secret negotiations with the Israelis would liquidate al-Quds intifada (uprising).

"At a time when PA leaders declare there is no possibility for any political solution with the occupation or return to negotiations, they conduct talks under the table and continue to hold meetings with the occupation that persists in killing and executing in cold blood our finest young men and women," Khreisheh stated in press remarks on Sunday.

He stressed that such behavior by the PA goes against the climate of the intifada, and reflects a complete disregard for the mass execution of Palestinians.

The Hamas official called on the PA leadership to stop underestimating its people's intelligence, affirming that the Palestinian people became fully aware of the impossibly of reaching a political solution with the occupation.

"The intifada has brought back the international focus on the Palestinian cause, and there is a need to stop holding meetings with the occupation covertly and overtly, at least in order to maintain our dignity," he underlined.

The Hebrew radio revealed on Sunday that the PA had sought recently to engage in secret peace talks with Israel in exchange for working on ending the wave of violence in the occupied territories.

During a weekly meeting, Benjamin Netanyahu said: "Here we condemn and they [the Palestinians] praise," according to Israeli daily Haaretz.

The PM said that "Jewish terror" was rare, while “Arab terror” frequently took place on a large scale.

Netanyahu stated that while Israeli leadership condemned terror attacks carried out by Jews, the Palestinian Authority “encourages terror and incites.”

The statement comes as ongoing investigations into the murder of three members of the Palestinian Dawabsha family by Jewish extremists as well as video footage released from an Israeli wedding party celebrating violence against Palestinians has been at the epicenter of Israeli public discussion.

Focus on the growing influence of Israeli extremist groups also coincides with a wave of violence that has left nearly 140 Palestinians and 20 Israelis dead since Oct. 1.

The majority of Palestinians were killed while carrying out attacks on Israeli military and civilians. Palestinian leadership has yet to condemn the individual attacks but has criticized Israel for its response to the recent violence.

While condemning the attacks, a UN official earlier this month said: “The injustices associated with an occupation which shows no prospect of ending feed into a perspective -- particularly among the youth -- that they have nothing to lose by sacrificing their lives."

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon on Saturday said that recent cases of Jewish extremism had caused politicians to ignore “seemingly less serious” offenses against Palestinians and their property, in effect supporting the perpetrators, according to Haaretz.

Focus on the cases have put other offenses on the back burner, Yaalon said, including the uprooting of Palestinian olive trees and the burning of Palestinian property by Israeli settlers.

The minister said that encouragement from ministers and members of Knesset for settlement expansion as well as verbal attacks on public figures helped to enable incidents like the Dawabsha murder and incitement, Haaretz reported.

Threat of ‘Jewish terror’

Israel has received criticism from the international community and rights groups in the past regarding government policies that encourage violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.

Israeli police earlier this week opened an investigation into the wedding of two right-wing Israelis after a video showed attendees dancing and singing songs about revenge while waving knives and guns in the air.

At one point during the ceremony, a masked Israeli youth waves a firebomb while another stabs a photo of Ali Dawabsha, an 18-month-old Palestinian burned alive in the arson attack that also left his parents dead.

Prime Minister Netanyahu said at the time that the video showed "the real face of a group that poses danger to Israeli society and security,” the daily said.

The suspects in the Dawabsha murder case have yet to be convicted, and Israel’s domestic security agency Shin Bet has received push-back from right-wing groups over its conduct in the investigation.

Israeli settlers regularly carry out attacks on Palestinians and their property, purportedly in revenge for actions taken by Palestinians or the Israeli government against the illegal settlement enterprise.

The attacks -- over 324 of which were carried out in 2014 according to UN documentation -- were labelled as “acts of terrorism” by the US government in 2013.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) strongly condemned the Palestinian Authorities crackdown against protesters and journalists in the Palestinian interim capital Ramallah.

On Friday December 25 security forces of the Al-Fatah dominated Palestinian Authority violently attacked protesters and journalists who participated in a protest march in Ramallah. The demonstration that should march from Ramallah to Beit El was organized by both Palestinian National and Islamic organizations.

The PFLP issued a communique, emphasizing that the security forces attacked the participants in the march, beating marchers, journalists, and media workers, causing injuries and attempting to prevent coverage of the attack. This crackdown went as far as confiscating journalists’ cameras. The PFLP stressed that it considers the crackdown and all of its elements as evidence of the role of the Palestinian Authority in working against and suppressing the aspirations of the Palestinian people to escalate the uprising against the Zionist occupation and oppression.

The Front stressed that the crackdown is inconsistent with national principles and reiterated its call for an immediate end to the Palestinian Authorities security cooperation between the PA and Israeli occupation forces.

The PFLP also reiterated that the Palestinian Authority once and for all and at once needs to end the burden of the Oslo Accords on the Palestinian people on political, security and economic levels. Palestinian security agencies must be converted to provide defense for the Palestinian people and to confront attacks of the occupation and settlers, instead of cracking down on Palestinians who protest against the occupier, noted the PFLP.

The Al-Fatah led Palestinian Authority has repeatedly promised to end its security cooperation with Israel. Usually such promises were made during negotiations with Israel and/or when Al-Fatah and the PA were facing strong domestic opposition. None of such promises have ever been converted into tangible measures.

Al-Fatah and the PA have also been accused to use the security cooperation with Israel to crack down on and imprison members of opposition parties, such as PFLP Secretary-General Ahmad Sa’adat, among many others. With regard to the Palestinian Authorities stance on a free press it is noteworthy that MADA, in 2014, reported that over 80% of Palestinian journalists self-censor.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) recently proposed holding talks in camera with Israel to table final status issues in exchange for working on ending al-Quds intifada (uprising) in the occupied territories, Israeli sources has revealed.

According to the Hebrew radio, the Palestinian proposal aims to end the wave of violence and restart secret peace talks with Israel in return.

The radio claimed that PA negotiation chief Saeb Erekat had made the proposal during his meeting last July with Israel's former deputy premier Silvan Shalom at the Jordanian intelligence headquarters in Amman.

Three weeks later, Shalom met again with Erekat, but this time at the Egyptian intelligence headquarters in Cairo and told him that Israel was willing to hold such talks but with no prior conditions.